Emily Kinney Is a Double-Threat Musician You Need to Know

Pursued by zombies no more, The Walking Dead actress has time to focus on her songwriting career.

Until last November's mid-season finale of The Walking Dead, Beth Greene, portrayed by the actor and musician Emily Kinney, was one of the AMC zombie mega-show's most prominent characters. Devoutly religious and optimistic if initially naive, Beth was such a fan favorite that the blogosphere exploded when she was killed off the show. Naturally, Kinney is not Beth. But don't tell that to the countless fans who come to Kinney's concerts; if it were up to them, she'd be Beth forever.

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Yes, such are the consequences of moving between the worlds of acting and music. Kinney has been singing since her childhood, and she got her first big break in Spring Awakening on Broadway, but only in recent years has the multi-talented 29-year-old made a legitimate run at a music career. She's released a pair of EPs, each showcasing the musings of a gentle singer-songwriter in the vein of Ingrid Michaelson. In the fall, Kinney releases her full-length debut album, This Is War. Kinney recently talked to us about her message-heavy LP, jumping from stage to screen, and how she has come to terms with her Beth persona.

People know you best for your acting. Tell us about your lifelong love of music.

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I've been singing since I was really little. I was probably seven when I did my first talent show. Singing was definitely my in to performing more so than acting. Music definitely came first. As a little kid I was thinking that was the route I was going. And then I started to really fall in love with theater and I realized what I love about music is the stories and the words. I can actually remember someone coming up to me—'cause I used to sing a lot at church and stuff like that—"I love when you sing at church because I feel like I can feel the words." That stuck with me. I was realizing there was something besides just the music. It was more about telling stories. So I started shifting my focus a bit.

When did music then become more than a hobby?

Well music has always been something I do no matter what: It's a very personally satisfying, fulfilling kind of thing. Writing a song or a poem, for me, is something I do regardless of anything else. Acting, I feel like someone has to hire me to do that. Music is something I do for myself. One thing I do in New York City is I go out to see bands play a lot. And so some of my very first friends in the city were people who play in bands. I would sing backup for them. Then when I got my job in Spring Awakening I saw a lot of other actors who were pursuing other things besides just acting. There's a songwriter Lauren Pritchard, who was in the show, and obviously John Gallagher [Jr., from The Newsroom], he has his own music that the writes.

And then you released your Blue Toothbrush EP in 2011?

I met my really good friend, Conrad Korsch, and he was super-encouraging. He said, "Your songs are really good. They're really special and unique. You should be doing your own music instead of singing backup for people." He actually helped me produce my first EP, Blue Toothbrush. I was definitely still doing acting—that was even before Walking Dead—but I would do clubs and eventually that started to grow and grow. It's almost like once you do one show you get this little high and then you've got to do another. Now I feel like I'm always thinking of how something would fit into a song.

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How long has This Is War been in the works?

A lot of it has been written over this past year, but then there are songs I picked specifically for this album that I had written more around the time of [the 2013 EP] Expired Love. But I feel like with this album, once I knew what it was going to be called, and once I wrote the song "This Is War," I started figuring out, "Okay, what else goes with that feeling or that concept?" I started picking songs. Some of them I had written that week, some of them I had written the year before. It became more about putting together an album that made some sort of sense or had some sort of message.

Because of The Walking Dead, you have a built-in audience, but I imagine some fans see you as Beth.

It's definitely been interesting. Mostly I'm thankful and it works. What's cool is that Beth sang on the show. So I feel like there's that connection there. Sometimes I'll get comments like, "Well, that doesn't seem like something you should be saying? That seems a little bit sexy to be saying for some teenage girl!" But it's like, "Well, you don't know me! You know Beth! I'm not this religious teenage girl from the South. That's not actually who I am. That's the character I played!" I don't know what people would expect Beth to sing—maybe more along the lines of the "Hold On" folk-y kind of thing—but my music is definitely lyric-based and I feel like that lives in that same genre.

I think people could always sense a bit of your own personality in Beth.

Definitely! When you play someone for so long and get to play them as they grow up there's definitely some similarities between you. I'm not from the South, but I'm from Nebraska, which is farmlands and small towns and that's similar to Beth's experience. But then there's also that thing where people are like "Well, are you an actor or are you a songwriter?" That's the thing that's difficult. Because it's like, "Well, I'm both!"

You come from a theater background, which is not dissimilar to performing music live.

I've always loved doing a show, whether it's music or theater. Getting ready for the show, doing the show, being done with it. There's something really satisfying about going from the beginning to the end and seeing it all through. TV is a little more chopped-up. I do like TV because you can go over the scene and make it just how you want it whereas with theater or music, if you miss the note or say the wrong line, you can't go back and fix it. So in that way you can't shape the performance the way you can for TV. But yeah, they both have things that are fun about them. There's definitely a certain pressure with a live show, which is why you get that high. I always still have that sense that I could mess up. There's always still a little bit of a jumping-off-a-cliff thing that happens.

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Does that feeling ever go away?

When I first started doing Spring Awakening, I remember getting the worst stage fright. I don't think it was because I didn't want to mess up and get in trouble because it was my first Broadway job. It was more about not wanting to disappoint everyone and what they've all created—the directors, the choreographers, the songwriters. But I think as I've performed more and more, I've realized, "Well, the worst that could happen is actually not that bad." The worst that happens is you forget a line or you mess up a move or you sing the wrong note. Having that perspective and messing up a few times and realizing you just keep going and it's no big deal, it becomes easier. Now I don't get stage fright at all. I definitely still get a little buzz and get nervous, but that's only healthy.

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